Avatar is my favorite show, but the more I think about the Air Nomad genocide, the less it starts to make sense.The Nomadic people who travel the skies constantly are all/mostly eradicated during the events of the comet which took place over at most an hour or two.Not all of them would be at the Air Temples. And in-fact, we only ever see bodies and combatants at the Southern temple. The Mechanist even points out that there was "nobody home"Of the ones that were at the Air Temples, there would have been at least some who choose to retreat instead of fighting and dying, especially when they start to lose. The ones who retreat, or just weren't at the temple at the time could have easily gone to the Earth Kingdom or Water Tribes for shelter. It's about as impossible to take those ones out as it would be to invade and take over Ba Sing Se in the first place.We can't even assume they just flew by on Dragons and roasted the place from a distance with such a surprise sneak attack that no one was able to react, because we see Fire Nation soldier corpses in the Southern Air Temple as well. There were boots on the ground fighting, likely with the aid of dragons to get up the mountains (the only way is on a Sky Bison apparently, but also Dragons were all over the place in Aang's time). Plus, there's basically no signs of any major burning on the outside of any of these temples.Sozin's final memoir says he wiped out the "Air Temples" with an image of a fire that was less than all encompassing on the same copy-pasted three temples. More than likely the Easter Air Temple since it has a similar three peak design, isn't upside down like the western one, and isn't a lone mountain like the North and South ones.Field too long? nah, field limit too short.
>>153368236I hate to give this show any credit, but the Netflix one actually does have a flimsy, yet usable explanation. It's just tradition for every Airbender to show up to the Southern Temple to celebrate the comet, apparently even in immediate threat of war that they knew was coming fast. (even though Sozin first started occupying Earth Kingdom Territory 37 years before the comet)
The answer is probably because originally Aang was gonna discover a hidden enclave of Air nomads at some point, and all the things you mentioned was supposed to be clever foreshadowing.But then Bryke pussied out and now we're left with a ton of plot holes.
>>153368236I think the tabletop RPG does bring up that there were subsequent hunts after the initial purge during The Comet, including attempts where the Fire Nation would bait and kill traveling Nomads with false survivors (actually just Firebenders in disguise).
>>153368236the survivors may have assimilated into the other nations to survive. Ty Lee being a descendant is a pretty popular theory, and one of the Yangchen novels said that chi-blocking is based on air nomad knowledge
>>153368279I thought of that too, but if any of them retreated to a well protected fortress like Ba Sing Se, or the Northern Water Tribe, there's not a lot the Fire Nation can do to get them.>>153368298I like the idea that the land and the dominant culture itself helps to determine what kind of bender a child is going to be. So, a pair of parents from the Water Tribes leaving to go live in the Earth Kingdom, and fully assimilating to the culture will spiritually align them enough to produce an Earthbender. I don't think it's entirely genetics, That kind of thing just gets messy after a while, and you don't really get perfectly homogeneous societies without some form of artificial separation, especially considering bending has been a factor for thousands of years, and civilizations don't tend to stay still.The comics kind of explore this a bit by having an Earthbender who's loyal to the Fire Nation because that's where her father was from, but it's in the weird Earth/Fire colony mix that they just sort of let be it's own thing. (stupid for other reasons, but I won't go into that.)So, if they wanted to go in that direction, I'd be fully on board with the idea that the remaining Airbenders scattered like the wind to the other three nations, but without their culture and heritage to bind them, no new Airbenders were born. I don't usually like to think about Korra and the comics for the same reason Star Wars fans tend to ignore any Disney-produced movies. I think they're inoffensive enough, but I think the world was just better before. That new movie was pretty good though. Really felt like it understood what was so intriguing about the universe.
>>153368236>>153368238This isn't actually that flimsy. IRL nomad civilizations (real ones, not hunter-gatherers) often had rituals that required everyone to meet up at preset locations a couple times per year on pain of ostracization for failing to show up.It's actually pretty intelligent if you're looking to wipe them out to take advantage and just spring an all out sucker punch during one of those religious rites.
>>153368429the flimsy parts are more or less what I mentioned before. Why did none of them scatter when they started to be attacked? Not even the women with young children seemingly tried to get away. That, or the Fire Nation was so utterly perfect and precise in their watchful murder that they caught all stragglers of the notoriously evasive and swift culture.Not to mention, why would the Air Nomads be holding a mecca for the comet when it doesn't have anything to do with them. It enhances Firebending. I get that they're very spiritual and peaceful people, but why even start on that tradition when it should clearly be some other culture doing it.And this is another personal unrelated gripe, but why are all Airbenders also Air Nomads? Did none of them get disillusioned with the lifestyle and decide to run away? None of that Nomad-ing got someone thinking "Man, I really wish I was an Earth Kingdom guy so I could own a farm, marry a beautiful wife, and not have to shave my head every day. Might even see what meat tastes like"My little fanfic idea is that when an Airbender masters the element, they get a choice to become a Monk/Nun, shave their heads, and live a life of meditation, worship, and freedom from worldliness (maybe even celibacy), or they can choose to leave to become a Wind Walker. Free to take their bison and live as a true nomad on the wind. Free to take a spouse, grow their hair out, take a spouse, and have children with the cultural expectation that they be given over to the Air Nomads to be trained and given the same choice eventually.Nothing to support this idea. I just think it would be cool.
>>153368494I guess I didn't proofread enough. I said take a spouse twice, and meant to say "keep their heads shaved" instead of just "shave their heads"
They had 100 years to kill them all and those dumb niggers marked their big ass foreheads with arrows letting the fire nation immediately know that they were air nomads. They were also just an extremely low population to begin with what with them being hippies concerned about overpopulation and probably shooting blanks constantly since they lacked proper nutrition their hippy diet.
>>153368236What we need is a prequel that retcons the genocide into a decade-long persecution rather than single events.The story writer itself.>protagonist is a firebender officer tasked with hunting down airbenders that survived the initial massacre>he finds airbender hideout and orders his men to attack it>during the raid, a spirit monster attacks them>protagonist is almost killed by the monster, but a group of airbenders save him>the group leader urges MC to take his daughter to safety before more firebenders arrive>MC feels like owes his life to airbenders>so he fakes his death and takes the daughter to a remote island in the Fire Nation>he raises the daughter and falls in love with him>he begins building a sanctuary for the airbenders and disguises them as non-benders>but word eventually get out and they fight for their last stand>only to finally get all killed
>>153368605they had 100 years to win the war, and yet only took Ba Sing Se months shy of a hundred years.>>153368634Maybe you left some details out, but that sounds really weird."I know you only came here to kill us all, and a spirit came to our aid, but we're actually going to save you now. Here's my daughter, be sure to only fuck her when she's old enough."
>>153368669I mean, that's only a rough outline.It can be fleshed out.Think it would be interesting to explore how the Firebender society works and what the troops are told.An alternative story could take Schindler's List-type approach.
>>153368689yeah, it could be interesting.Oddly enough, from a worldbuilding perspective, starting out the story with one of only four cultures being basically all gone doesn't seem like the smartest move. There's a lot to explore there, but not a lot of opportunity to.
>>153368236The tie-in comics had some survivors confirmed, but only mentioned in the sense that they got got later.
>>153368236>>153368774Also, while non-canonical, there were these two from the old card game.Malu, a survivor who lived on to become a folktale(but would likely be dead by the time of ATLA from age), and Afiko the betrayer, who joined Sozin and helped round up the air nomads, only to be executed himself later on.
>>153368799They were pretty cool concepts
>>153368236>Avatar is my favorite showYou liked it more than btas?
>>153368236There was a comics where Zhao used old Fire Nation tactic of luring remaining Air Nomads by tricking them into thinking they were about to meet other survivors
The show unfortunately does fall apart if you apply any logical thought to its premise.The problem is that this CAN be written around, but the writers weren't able to do this. Korra is a classic example of how they actually make the storytelling even worse - realistically Aang would not be allowed to have a nuclear family with Katara, she could still be his wife and her kids would inherit from him, but Aang would be expected to father hundreds of children with women all over the world, and would be training new airbenders at a temple in his early 20s. This wouldn't be needed if the "we need Air Nomads for balance" thing was just superstition, except Korra than confirms it's not and then ALSO decides that a magic bullshit deus ex machina is how they resolve that plothole.The worse thing is they could have actually solved this at the end of ATLA, by having Aang actually find a surviving group of Airbenders who have been maintaining their culture in secret for the last century. Then, he could learn Spiritbending (strongly associated as the Airbender's own OP upgrade) from one of his old classmates who is now like 110 years old and super wise or something. It would also be super cathartic to know that if Aang defeats the Firelord, the future isn't bleak or lonely for him. Aang can then have his fairytale romantic ending without it being a stupid selfish decision.This might undermine the premise, but if the premise was always full of holes then who cares.
>>153368634>>153368669>>153368689>>153368755Further ideas.>story begins with masscre on Southern Temple>where 33% of all airbenders are killed in one night>the remaining airbenders flee their temples>the sudden massacre causes disturbance in the spirit world>creating increase number of natural disasters (tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes) and corrupt spirits breaking into the material world>Sozin's attack on airbenders is actually controversial in Fire Nation>anti-Sozin faction pops up within Fire Nation, which disapproves the cruelty and wants to depose Sozin>Sozin has to pull back his army because is on verge of civil war>meanwhile, the refugee air nomads gets divided into camps>pacifists, who want to just run and hide> survivalists, who want to fight back>the survivalist wants to use corrupt spirit energies as a weapon against the Fire Nation>before the civil war in Fire Nation can erupt, the survalist makes their move>they use corrupt spirit energy to create a gigantic tornado and send it to destroy a dozen Fire Nation cities>this act of terror unifies the Fire Nation and prevents civil war, because Fire Nation sees Air Nomads as enemies>Fire Nation quickly defeats the survivalists and continues hunting the pacifist who had nothing to with the attack
>>153368279Aang does talk about traveling a lot but we don't really see that in his flashbacks. We don't even really see it in Roku's flashbacks. It seems more like they live at the Temples and occasionally visit the normies
>>153369127It's really more of an assumption from the name Air Nomads, and the fact that he confirms that he's a nomad too with the travelers.He goes on a lot of different adventures though, and references them constantly. Like how Bumi was one of his closest friends, or how he and Kuzan "got in and out of so much trouble together" implying lengthy recurring visits.Plus, he seems pretty comfortable out on the open skies without too much homesickness or travel fatigue. Yeah, he misses his culture more than anything, but I get the impression that he handles it by just keeping his mind off of it, and treating each day like it's any other.They do spend a lot of time in the Temples though, not a lot to dispute there. It's just not too clear how much of that is just visiting to share stories and catch up, or permanent residents there to provide training, guidance, and temple maintenance. I'd think Gyatso would try and stick around often considering how much authority he seemed to have. He had a special Amulet and everything. The same one worn by presumably Yangchen before him, and Aang after him.
>>153368333Anon that’s retarded. First off, in the show, we see that the Fire Nation has drifted away from the spiritual aspects of their culture, embracing, instead, a more rationalistic society and they weren’t any less able to produce Fire Benders because of it. The truth is, bending is an inheritable, genetic, trait. Ethnic Fire Nation folk, no matter how enthusiastically they adopt the latest high society Ba Sing Se fashion trend, how often they eat Wagashi desserts, or swig Kalenutsco would make them or their children be able to Earth Bend. If they want a chance at Earth Bending Children they’d have to mix with Ethnic Earth Kingdom Folks like Mako and Bolin’s parents did.
>>153368689Oh buddy, no. What is Osukaa Sugihara going to make a list of Air Nomads to be set aside so he can have them work in his Steamboat Shipyard?
>>153368236For the story they told and the medium used (kid shows) you don't need to explain the logistic of Air Nomad genoside, you just need to show a destroyed temple, some bones and move along. But yeah, the Air nomads feel like the most genocide proof race in the Avatar universe in account of them being able to flee very easily.
>>153368236It's all a conspiracy pushed by Tenzin and his cronies
>>153368236Bending is and has always been about more than just a genetic trait to the four basic races. It’s also a spiritual connection to a unique culture and belief system, as well as a connection to the natural world. Some airbenders undoubtedly survived and went into hiding, but they hid so deep that they gave up their cultural practices, including teaching one another bending. In a few short generations, their descendants had successfully assimilated and severed connection to their faith, and airbending became a lost art.
>>153368236>Air Nomads flee to Ba Sing Se >Try to set up enclave >Dai Li do their actual official duty (maintaining the culture of Ba Sing Se) and arrest them>Try to conscript them like the Earth Queen would later try>Dai Li brainwash them into compliance >They become spiritually broken and lose their bending >End up with a bunch of powerless brainwashed former air nuns>Might as well make use of them>100 years later...
>>153369773But you're assuming the Dai Li were corrupt since day one but at there really wouldn't be a need for them to be a secret police trying to censor the war.
>>153369719So, according to this fic, one just happened to have assimilated into the Fire Nation Aristocracy? Look, if Ty Lee is to be a descendant of ethnic Air Nomads, wouldn’t make more sense if one of her ancestors took on a War Bride during the campaign?
>>153369842Well even a non-corrupt Dai Li would've prevented an enclave from forming within Ba Sing Se because that is basically their express purpose. But the Dai Li were already well over a century old by that point. It's not hard to imagine they were already doing some spooky shit before the war.
>>153369843I don’t see why your theory and mine would have to be mutually exclusive.
>>153369843It's actually fit incredibly well into canon as a literal Fire Nation Princess was a patron on Air Nomad culture before the war which suggests the air nomads living in the fire nation weren't isolationist but actively intermingling with people all the way up to Royal society
>>153369916No I think you're still making the mistake of seeing them as static as in how they were shown in the shows were how they always were but you have to think years before when the world is at balanced and no one was expecting the fire nation to attack. At the point, while still being secret police, would not have the mission statement of repressing any news from the outside world.
>>153369962>At the point, while still being secret police, the Dai Li would not have the mission statement of repressing any news from the outside worldFixed*And also note that Bai Sing Sae was still accepting immigrants like travelers and refugees when we saw them so I think Air Nomads wouldn't be banned and exiled.
>>153368236this picture just convinces me that air bending women are ugly and looking at their kids I have to assume the majority are all inbred
>>153369962Their stated purpose from creation is "protecting the cultural heritage of Ba Sing Se" and they ALWAYS acted as a secret police force. They were created in response to a peasant revolt. Allowing not simply Earth Kingdom refugees, but a totally distinct culture to form an enclave within the city would have been a problem for any version of the Dai Li. The airbenders would've been forced to leave or assimilate in any case.
>>153370187>they ALWAYS acted as a secret police force.I never said they weren't but also you're full of shit dude. They're letting in war refugees from all over the place while the war os raging so why the fuck would they bar air nomads?
>>153370327The war refugees are still Earth Kingdom citizens and they're still watching over them like hawks. Air Nomads are a totally distinct culture that wouldn't be able to naturally assimilate. The difference is very clear.
>>153370327>Earth Kingdom refugeesThe Earth King's own subjects>Air NomadsNot his subjects.
>>153369773>>153369719I don’t understand this odd insistence that Culture or Spirituality are the source of bending when, really, what’s presented in the shows would indicate quite the opposite.I mentioned before that the Fire Nation in ATLA was not particularly spiritual, in fact they were often shown to be a force that was actively antagonistic to the Spiritual World. They seemed to have developed a rationalistic society and, again, were not less able to Fire Bend because of it. Indeed, Azula and Ozai are some of the most powerful benders in the show and neither of them seem particularly spiritual.I’m sure culture and spirituality helps, that’s kinda the point in the Firebending Masters episode and Iroh’s teachings, but it doesn’t seem as though bending (itself) necessitates cultural or spiritual connection to be able to do. What seems to be the essentialist trait in order to bend is, are you from the people? I think there’s a clear genetic qualifier. Indeed, the Swampbenders aren’t any at all culturally or spiritually akin to either the North or South Poles but are nonetheless water benders. They might, however, come from the same root people in the far distant past. Additionally, in the show, it’s consistently shown that certain traits are connected to the Nations.>Fire Nation people have yellow eyes>Water Tribe people have blue eyes>Earth Kingdom people have green eyes >Air Nomad people have grey eyes I mean that’s one of the reasons people think Ty Lee is an Air Nomad descendant. Additionally, I think my case is bolstered further with the sequel series and various books and novels. As mentioned before, there was an Earth-Bender loyal to the Fire Nation because they were the product of a mixed marriage. They were Culturally Fire Nation (Colonial Culture in particular) but because of their lineage was nevertheless an Earth Bender.
>>153370340they let in two fire nation royalty in so they're not that good at their jobs.One guy was literally the general who laid siege to their wall mere decades.So you have fuck all evidence that the dai li are good at their jobs and zero reason that Day Zero Dai Li agents were that hard to keep bai sing sae free of air nomads.
>>153370395(Continued)It seems like the only way a non-ethnic can obtain another people’s bending discipline is through the intervention of the Spirits either by the Lion Turtles directly or through the mumbo jumbo of the Harmonic Convergence. It should be stressed though that this, in world, especially the latter is seen as unnatural and obviously something that doesn’t normally happen. Indeed, many of the Earth Ethnics that got air bending didn’t seem particularly spiritual at all much less enthusiasts of Air Nomad culture.
>>153370410If the airbenders have to hide their culture like Iroh and Zuko, rather than practicing out in the open, then the Dai Li have done their job.
>>153370432We have zero reason to believe that they did though, which is the main point I'm getting across.
>>153370410Anon they don’t have photography yet, it’s completely plausible that the average Earth Kingdom Clerk wouldn’t know what an older version of the Dragon of the West would look like because all they have to go off of is word of mouth and artist interpretations of what he looked like as a young man. However, for the sake of fairness, this brings to light an actual problem in the show (or at least a nitpick) that being how is it that some random, probably illiterate, peasant was able to recognize and correct Zuko about his own story in Zuko Alone. Moreover, kinda to your point, even if they didn’t recognize that Zuko and Iroh were Fire Nation Royalty specifically, their red eyes probably should’ve given them away as being Ethnic Fire Nation at the very least
>>153370432Why would hiding their culture prevent their offspring from being able to bend air? Again, as I’ve previously went over, we’ve seen time and time again Benders being able to bend regardless if they’re particularly culturally or spiritually attuned to the culture associated with the art.
>>153368236>Sozen's comet only comes by once every hundred or so years>Fire Nation would have to mobilize well in advance to get to every air temple in the world and post up at the gates of MOUNTAIN TOP TEMPLES ONLY ACCESSIBLE BY SKY BISON possibly for days or weeks, fully armed, and supplied for a long-term assault>Air Nomads somehow didn't notice this>Air Nomads didn't ask any questions.>No one else asked any questions either, even though none of the Air Temples are in Fire Nation territory and would need to be sailed to and then deployed on mountainous islands, and then marched up said mountains, AT THREE DIFFERENT TEMPLES AROUND THE WORLD which no one ever noticed>This all happened so fast and with no one in the entire fucking world seeing it in any way, not even the Air Nomads who are constantly flying all over the fucking world BECAUSE THEY ARE NOMADS ever spotting a single warship belching giant clouds of black smoke or a single solder climbing A FUCKING MOUNTAIN>Did I mention that the Comet lasts for about an afternoon? This is not an all day phenomenon.>Even if every fire nation soldier suddenly gained the ability to fly and rocket themselves up to the temples in minutes, they still would have been seen and still needed to sail right up to the fucking islands, and then position their troops at the base of the fucking mountains.>AND AT NO POINT DID THE ENTIRE CULTURE OF NOMADIC MONKS JUST GET ON THEIR FUCKING FLYING BISON AND GO TO ONE OF THEIR NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES TO SAY "hey I think the Fire Nation is trying to kill us."
>>153368494>Why did none of them scatter when they started to be attacked? Not even the women with young children seemingly tried to get away. That, or the Fire Nation was so utterly perfect and precise in their watchful murder that they caught all stragglers of the notoriously evasive and swift culture.They spent 3 seasons chasing a single Airbender and never even killed him with a military force 100 years more advanced than the one that genocided an entire race of flying monks, many of who were more powerful and more skilled than Aang was as a child.It don't make any fucking sense.
>>153370327Because they’re not their own people and they are ethnically particularist. I mean, this isn’t even me reading into it. They don’t like outsiders on their land which is why Jet and his partisans attempted to flood an ethnic Fire Nation settlement and why Kuvira attempted to do what she did.
>>153370410The Dai Li had been around since Kyoshi. Since the 100 years War, no doubt, was the only war to have occurred on the massive Continent that is the Earth Kingdom (which is a fractious pre modern feudal empire btw) it can be safely assumed that Sozin’s Comet and subsequent invasion of the Earth Kingdom wasn’t their first rodeo when it comes to processing refugees.
>>153370395It's pretty explicitly stated out there that the Air Nomads had 100% bender population because of their high degree of spirituality.
>>153370506AtLA is more ambiguous about it. Katara manages to crack an iceberg in rage, but otherwise the show has episodes very demonstrating that you need the correct mindset to achieve meaningful results (e.g. Aang unable to earthbend in Bitter Work, Aang+Zuko unable to firebend in The Firebending Masters). Legend of Korra is where they muddy the waters and treat bending more like an innate superpower rather than a martial art. Like, going by the original show, almost none of the new airbenders should've been spontaneously producing those explosive air blasts without any technique.
>>153370411>Indeed, many of the Earth Ethnics that got air bending didn’t seem particularly spiritual at all much less enthusiasts of Air Nomad culture.And this is why Legend of Korra sucks
>>153370800>episodes very demonstratingvery clearly demonstrating*
>>153370694That doesn’t really contradict what I said though. I’m sure spirituality helps, no doubt it does, but I don’t think it’s a necessary requirement. Indeed, I think it’s primarily genetic. The Air Nomads were minuscule in population and due to their practice of Free Love (an aspect of Canon I actually don’t like but is what it is) can be easily inferred to be to some degree inbred. This tiny gene pool paired with high spirituality, no doubt, resulted in a ubiquitous presence of Air Benders. Regardless, the needed, base, ingredient remains genetics. That’s why Zaheer, despite giving himself over Air Nomad culture and spirituality was unable to Airbend prior to the Harmonic Convergence. It’s because he wasn’t ethnically an Air Nomad.
>>153370835Bumi had the genetic predisposition to be a bender of some sort and definitely had an airbender's mindset (moreso than Tenzin, for sure) but he couldn't bend until harmonic convergence. The heritability of bending is weird. It's pretty clear they wanted to avoid the topic of genetics, but it just leaves things in a vague place.
There was also those twins in the Fortune Teller episode where one was a bender and the other wasn't.
It’s both genetics and spirituality, culture means nothing unless it helps you connect to the element you’re bending. You both need the ethnic genes but also a natural level of spirituality to bend-it is very much luck of the draw and there is nothing that concretely defines “spirituality,” so some people just get screwed over.
>>153370800Honestly I think more of the original series backs my stance up more than anything. Sure, absolutely, being in the right mindset helps a bender achieve meaningful results and, indeed, having such a mindset and being spiritually attuned to the culture probably produces the best Benders. That said, it doesn’t seem to be a requirement nor the only avenue to success at bending. Indeed we see this multiple times. The Fire Nation is obvious, most of them aren’t really spiritually attuned to the degree that their cousins in the Solar Ruins are yet, nonetheless, many of them are still formidable benders. A specific example would be Admiral Zhao. Jeong Jeong explicitly states that Zhao, his former student, does not have the correct mindset when it comes to Firebending yet, regardless, Zhao is still a formidable bender. The point of the Deserter isn’t that the correct mindset is the *only* way to develop one’s bending prowess but, rather, the right and morally conscious way to do so. Another example, I would argue, is Master Yu and Xin Fu. Both of whom are proficient Earth Benders, masters in their own right, but both of whom bastardize the craft in their own ways. Neither of whom are particularly spiritual nor would I characterize their mindsets relating to bending to be the correct one. All this to say while, obviously, the correct temperament and spirituality will help one master their bending it doesn’t seem to be the only approach. It’s the best approach, and arguably the most fruitful, however, the show displays relatively easy alternatives that could result in short term success. So, I maintain, it seems the raw ability to bend is a natural genetic ability one inherits. However, to clarify, in order to be good at bending one needs to go through considerable training and put in the work. The best training requires a Spiritual Connection and adopting the right temperament, but that’s not the only way to become a bending “master”
>>153370968Spirituality helps but isn’t needed. Zhao was neither spiritual or, indeed, had the right temperament as Jeong Jeong points out but nevertheless was a formidable bender. >>153370891When it comes to non-benders like Sokka, Bumi, Lo, Li, and indeed that one Earth Kingdom Twin I think it’s clear that they have the genetic trait but it’s dormant. Kinda like how someone with Brown eyes can have a child with blue eyes.So, with that in mind, each of them have the required genetic code for bending but that genetic code is dormant and thus doesn’t exhibit itself.
Guys it's easy, every baby whose born is visited by the magical lion turtle who rolls a D4.
>>153370835> I think bending prowess is primarily geneticYou have at least one thing in common with Ozai.
>>153371076There's a point of difference between mindset and spirituality to be made here. I would say it's more that the spirituality is like a tool or path for achieving the right mindset, but not the only way. Still, Aang's hard block on earthbending is demonstrative that simply having the ability is nowhere near enough. There is a mental aspect that is vital.
>>153369936thats a post cannon retcon anon
>>153371635Yeah, I breathe air too and understand the sun would rise and set over the course of the day. Those are two other things I have in common with Ozai.That doesn’t really refute my argument. On top of that, many of the good guys don’t object to the idea that the ability to bend is primarily genetic. That’s not their objection to Ozai (shocker) their objection is, for one, his desire to conquer the world and, on a metaphysical level, his designs to de-mystify and rationalize the world upon his conquest. It’s indisputable that people are born benders and, moreover, what kind of bender they are is determined by what ethnicity they are.
>>153368236They're not really nomads when they crowd into one of 4 different mega temples.
>>153368333Nah, turns out it was just reincarnations of the original peoples that had their bending powers turned on by giant turtles. They keep bending powers in all their future lives.
>>153371639I see what you mean here, and I wholeheartedly agree that after the way you framed it Spiritually is not the only manner to achieve the mindset. I’d go further and suggest each element has different mindsets to allow one to become proficient at bending as well. On top of this, I don’t think we can take what’s true for the Avatars (a unique individual in the setting) and extrapolate what is true for them as being equally true for the average person. This mindset argument works for Aang, absolutely, but if you get a random Earth-Kingdom Child that’s predisposed to be a bender and raise him with an Air Nomad mindset he’s not going to be able to Airbend, he’s just going to be an awful Earthbender.
>>153368236They had 100 years to genocide them. They probably killed most of them over the first 10 years. Any remaining airbenders were probably discriminated against by other nations or hidden away by sympathetic people. Even if not every airbender was killed, they still likely faced cultural genocide and couldn’t teach air bending out of fear.
>>153372319Once again, I must point out, absent of a proper Air Nomad Culture and Spirituality an ethnic Air Nomad would still be able to air bend. They wouldn’t be a good air bender, lacking any proper mentor, but an air bender nonetheless.
>>153372319>They probably killed most of them over the first 10 years.I think you're both underestimating airbenders and overestimating the fire nation army.
Seemed like overwhelming majority of the benders in Korra were not all that>"Spiritual"Primarily the very modern suburban airbenders that showed up later on.
>>153372671Legend of Korra in general massively downplays the mental aspects of bending and technique. The pro-bending/street fighting style they push in S1 is basically just having everyone fight like a firebender but it's cool for all elements because you, uh, lock in when you strike or something. It's ironic that the first two seasons are supposed to be all about the spiritual aspects of bending, but it basically guts them.
>>153368236They toy with this concept in one of the comics, by suggesting that the Fire Nation stole Air Nomad relics and used them to build fake hideouts as traps for the survivors looking for each other.It's not strictly important to say "every single Air Nomad was killed" though. Their entire culture was wiped out, and by the time that Aang comes out of the ice, there are no airbenders left. That's all that has to be completely true.>>153368298The Ty Lee theory doesn't have very strong grounding, though it's interesting. Notably, the TTRPG Avatar Legends is all officially canon material, and it says that during Roku's lifetime, there was a period of the upper class of the Fire Nation taking interest in Air Nomad spirituality. It's entirely possible that Ty Lee got her hands on these ideas, handed down through materials that her noble family had collected at that time.
>>153372876There's kind of a push towards more "boxing" style martial arts in Korra. Boxing gaining high levels of popularity in the west is more "modern" than traditional eastern martial arts, though the fighting styles of the benders is still rooted in those things (like using muay thai). It does cause a lot of the fighting to look more same-y though, since there is kind of a "genre" of martial arts on display that sort of narrows the visual language.
>>153372382In the novels, Kyoshi's mother gave up being an Air Nomad and took up a very earthly life as a thief. Her airbending became so weak that she had to supplement her power with fans, and her airbending was eventually lost anyway. The mental/spiritual aspect of bending is important, and airbending is the most tied to its concepts out of all of them. It weirdly had a 100% inheritance rate among Air Nomads, but if they didn't upkeep a particular lifestyle of being (largely) untethered from the world, then their bending would wane.
the series pretty much abandoned all the asian wushu shit with Korra all to the detriment of the lore and foundations of bending. It's why they also came up with a retarded idea like the dark avatar. No point in thinking about any of it on a deeper level
>>153373392A "dark avatar" is not NECESSARILY a bad idea. The execution is entirely awful, though. The lore for Wan and Raava is like an ancient tale, hitting all the right kinds of beats, but it's poorly handled by people who don't have a good grasp of the spiritual ideas they're playing with, and they didn't think through all of the implications that introducing it would have on the setting. If they were going to do this, and more in line with reasonable thinking, then Vaatu wouldn't be a being where "chaos" and "evil" are conflated, and Raava wouldn't be a being where "order" and "good" are conflated. Maybe a "dark" avatar would be warranted, a representation of change to balance the first avatar's order to help actually balance the world. It doesn't work thematically in the story anyway though, because the world has reached great times of chaos despite only Raava being present to interact with it. It's far too thoughtless. It basically happens in the lifetime of every single Avatar, where the problems left over as the consequences of their actions are pushed down the road for the next one, or crop up in the absence between one death and the realization of the next one.
>>153370549They were actually trying to keep him alive, since killing him would just allow the water tribe to train the new avatar>>153368236Once again on my endless "Embers" shilling, the writer of the fic explains that the earth kingdom had grudges against the nomads, seeing as how Aang doesn't stop Appa from eating whatever when they land on crops or farms, a whole fleet of them could've left a town barren, and if you confront an air nomad? They flee and fly! A lot of people would be willingly to rat out those pests as soon as they passedThey also explain that whatever descendants might survive wouldn't be able to bend cause air is about freedom, and the war has extinguished such freedom first and foremost, and that the whole "everyone on the air nation was an airbender" might be what they told the kids, towns living close to the mountains collecting the unwanted ones
>>153370549They strictly weren't trying to kill him, because they were trying to avoid the reincarnation cycle becoming a problem. By the end of season 2 though, Azula calculates Aang's death as acceptable, because the plan is so close to completion already. Ozai seems to not mind this, which would imply that he has decided at some point that his success means that a new Avatar reincarnating into another nation just won't matter. He intends to crush the Earth Kingdom completely with his zeppelin fleet, and then there would be nothing left to divide his military's attention from being able to swat the Northern Water Tribe next.
>>153373995>>153374076And yet, they couldn't even capture him, let alone stop him for multiple years. The only fucking air nomad in the world, flying around on the only sky bison left, in a world largely controlled by the Fire Nation.
>>153373478It's a bad idea precisely because the avatar was already supposed to be the force of balance, vaatu makes it redundant and bad. The avatar was supposed to be the mediator between humans and spirits, they didn't need to create another spirit that represents evil and destruction when balance was never about good and evil and the avatar already destroys things for the sake of the world.
>>153374126the entirety of atla lasts like 4 months
>>153374126What are you even talking about? Sozin spent his whole life looking for Roku's successor. The other Fire Lords were wary of the Avatar, but never saw any signs that they really still existed out there. Ozai remembers this when he sends his own son on a bullshit errand. Zhao goes out of his own way to try to capture the Avatar alive, even using his military position to secure what he needs for the job (and he would have succeeded long-term if Zuko hadn't intervened).The actual story of Last Airbender, starting from Aang coming out of the ice, is not even two years long. At first, the Fire Nation doesn't even know that Aang is out there. Zuko sits on the information, because he doesn't want any competition. One of their top naval officers puts together a plan to capture the Avatar and actually goes for it, but when it doesn't pan out, there are other, bigger operations going on that take priority. After all, Aang is a child, and obviously hasn't mastered the four elements. Then, the Fire Lord literally sends the princess, his own daughter, to go deal with the Avatar.It all makes plenty of sense. And you're wrong when you say:>flying around on the only sky bison leftAs though it is easy to follow the path of or catch someone on a flying bison, even if you have reported sightings (remember, the Fire Nation delivers information with carrier birds)>in a world largely controlled by the Fire Nation.As though this is actually correct. The Fire Nation controls is own lands, some of the seized territory that used to be roughly Air Nomad territory, and a relatively small chunk of the absolutely massive continent that makes up the Earth Kingdom that they've turned into colonies. Much of the Earth Kingdom is either not seized at all, or is an active war zone.
Hello, OP here. I'm awake again.On the point of bending being a cultural trait rather than a genetic one, I understand the arguments against it, but it's missing the big picture.The Fire Nation in the war isn't quite as spiritual, of course, but I don't think it's just based on how in-tune with the spirits that individual is. It's more based on what the cultural values represent, whether intentional or not. The Fire Nation expresses just as much power and passion as they always have. The Earth Kingdom is still full of resilient pragmatic people, and the Water Tribes still have adaptable tightly knit communities.You could also get into an argument of some extra-natural spiritual attunement requirement to develop the chi pathways to bend, but I don't think there's really a way to scientifically measure this kind of thing. Sokka is a lot less "spiritual" than Katara, but Azula is way less than Zuko. Zuko and Azula are also in the royal family, which seems to not be able to produce non-benders, or at least, it isn't common enough for us to know about it. Katara's mother seemed pretty similar to Katara, but she wasn't a bender. Neither of her parents were actually. There are a pair of identical twins where one is a bender, and one isn't. It's definitely not so simple as being genetic. Like I implied before, that kind of thing doesn't just disappear easily if there's any sort of genetic cross-contamination. Imagine two non-bending parents in the Earth Kingdom just producing a waterbender baby despite neither of them knowing they had water tribe genetics. I just don't see that happening in this setting. Regardless of whether it does happen, and just not shown.
>>153374832There is supposed to be a degree of vagueness about this. The pair of twins in the episode about fortune telling where one is a bender and the other isn't, which is specifically put there to drive this idea in. The genetic/spiritual component to being a bender is there, but not entirely clear to us because the ambiguity creates a sense of mysticism while trying to reduce eugenic assumptions (though the royal family of the Fire Nation believes in it pretty strongly anyway).It's still the case though, that in Air Nomad society, everyone born to those people and that culture were benders. We can only guess based on evidence that it's ado with their high spirituality as a people, and that their culture was cultivated so strongly around the spiritual ideals that slot into airbending. But as the supplemental materials came in later, we also learned that airbending is especially volatile. Abandonment of the Air Nomad lifestyle is so intrinsically tied to the spiritual concepts that make airbending work that you just stop being able to bend over time. The more "earthly" you are, the more attached you are to a material lifestyle, the less capable of being an airbender you are. Being a nomad with no exact home, a sense that your possessions can easily be let go of, and without even personal attachment to one's own offspring, keeps you an airbender.
>>153374980water and firebenders get their powers directly from astral bodies and airbenders lose their powers if they lose their spirituality, they are all getting powers from a direct source
>>153375095>they are all getting powers from a direct sourceNo, they aren't. Earthbending and airbending have no equivalent to the sun/moon issue. And it's not like earthbending is inherently the opposite, where they lack spirituality as a source of strength.Every type of bending does have a level of spirituality to it, and when you fall too far out of tune with the one that relates to your own bending, it stops working. We saw this when Zuko lost his firebending potency, and we saw this with Kyoshi's mother as she let go of the Air Nomad lifestyle. However, the spiritual ideals of self that go with each form of bending are also different. You can also see this in how someone with the wrong mindset for a type of bending has difficulty learning it, through pretty much all of the Avatars that we saw. Aang can't align himself with the concepts needed to earthbend at first, at all, because he can't get himself unstuck from the entirely incompatible ways of thinking that he approaches things as an airbender. Yet, adapting to gain earthbending did not lesson his spirituality or ability to airbend either. He just became a more balanced person.
>>153374428That's not even remotely correct.
>>153375349airbending gets powers from their beliefs, that's a direct source
>>153375524It's not any different than any other form of bending though, so it's not a meaningful distinction.
>>153375561There is no distinction, when the moon dies, waterbending disappears, when the sun is blocked, firebending disappears, when they let go of their ways, airbending disappears. Whatever it is that powers earthbending hasn't been found, but it's probably the planet itself so it's never going to matter.
>>153375606There is no distinction between airbenders losing their bending when their link to the spiritual ideals related to airbending, versus any other form of bender losing their link to the spiritual ideals of their bending. You do not need to turn off access to sunlight for firebenders to lose firebending; they just have to be out of sync with the sense of self that allows firebending to work.Also, blocking the sun canceling out firebending HAS to be more nebulous in some fashion, because it's not like they lose the ability to firebend when it's night (or that waterbenders can't bend when the moon is down).
>>153372175>if you get a random Earth-Kingdom Child that’s predisposed to be a bender and raise him with an Air Nomad mindset he’s not going to be able to AirbendHe's going to be a sand bender. Iroh learn waterbending techniques to improve his firebending.
>>153369843>>153369936This isn't fanfiction, the TTRPG confirms this.
>>153380021>"This isn't fanfic because this other fanfiction says the same thing"
>>153370835>Air Nomads were minuscule in population and due to their practice of Free Love (an aspect of Canon I actually don’t like but is what it is)Bringing Korra lore to the discussion throws everything down the gutter since extrapolating word of god about how Korra got airbending leads to the possibility that every single human in Avatar could become a bender if they get bloodbended just the right way.
